From the Contents of Esoteric Classes

On-line since: 15th January, 2011

79. EL, Muenchen, 2-12-'11

It's important for a modern to be aware of what he's doing and
what changes in him when he takes up an esoteric life.

We've often heard that two paths take us into spiritual worlds;
one of them is when a man descends deep within him to find a
connection with God; the other is when he tries to go out into the
macrocosm. We have the forces in us that we seek, that created us; we
look for them because we don't recognize them and not because
we don't have them. In theosophy we learn about both paths that
are supposed to balance each other, for a modern is no longer suited
to go on one path alone Each path has its dangers, that we'll
discuss later, and they're both very difficult. We treat the
inner path in our meditations in inspiration, and the outer one
through a thorough study of theosophical teachings about world
evolution in imagination. This study develops our intellect and also
influences our feelings, and after years of thorough study of these
ideas, we'll notice that we've become different human
beings. Theosophy works on men whether they bring a receptivity for
it with them or not. Moderns are divided into two groups — those
who seek theosophy because it gives them what they were striving for
and those who don't know what to do with it and are opposed to
it. Since November, 1879, a few men have become mature enough to take
in theosophical teachings, but it's only a small host, whereas
other moderns are till unable to acquire the teachings, consider them
to be fantastic ideas and dreams or even get angry about them.

When
people who prove to be receptive for theosophical teachings let the
latter work upon them, their etheric body begins to oscillate
slightly. Whereas someone who loses himself in external things gets
an expanded and rarified etheric body. When such a person hears some
spiritual teachings it's as if the wind were blowing through a
cleft in the etheric body, which announced itself in him as fear, but
appears outwardly as doubt. Such a man only notices the doubts, but
they're the expression of fear and anxiety that have moved into
his rarified etheric body as into a vacuum and have become noticeable
there as doubt. We can't help a man who behaves in a rejective
manner. It's better not to bother him with theosophy But
wherever an opportunity rises we should quietly let theosophical
ideas flow in according to the principle “steady dripping
hollows the tone.” For we only have another 400 years or so to
give these teachings in a theosophical form to all men. So that
everyone will have an opportunity those who resisted them now will be
born again in the next four centuries. A suitable number of men must
be present then who represent theosophy in the right way.

Men
could only tread the inner path for a long time before the event of
Golgotha. Men who went out into the macrocosm in ancient India would
have become lost in it as in darkness and emptiness, because their
inner members had a different relationship to each other then. This
kind of union with God existed until medieval times, because man
changes but slowly. Mystics like Eckhart, Tauler and Molinos teach us
the inner path an describe it exactly. Miguel de Molinos speaks of
five stages of immersion He says that we must turn away from all
creatures that corresponds to the forces of our etheric body, from
our talents that correspond to the astral body, and from our ego that
coincides with our fourth part and that we must merge with God.

But it
gradually became necessary for men to tread the inner and outer paths
simultaneously, and that's why the Rosicrucian, esoteric
schools that taught both ways rose in the 11th and
12th centuries.

The
writer of the Apocalypse points to the outer path for the first time.
He shows us that we must become entirely separated from our
personality to treat it. In a modest way he says that he was caught
up by the spirit on Patmos Island. This has a particular meaning. In
order to tread this outer path or to find the union with the divine
in the macrocosm one must choose a firm point from which one
concentrates oneself. So John the theologian calculated the
stars' position on September 30, 395
A.D.
and he had his
visions from this point. On that day the sun stood before the Virgo
sign and the moon was under her feet. We showed this picture on one
of the seven seals. One can also calculate this time exoterically.
Scholars have done this and have concluded that John Chrysostum wrote
the Apocalypse around this time. But in reality we're touching
upon a great secret here, for of course the Apocalypse arose much
earlier, and its writer only moved himself ahead into the year
395.

Both
paths have dangers for which an esoteric must watch. One who takes in
theosophical teachings is attacked by many doubts; that's only
natural and better than accepting things on faith. Of course he must
eliminate these doubts and this will make him stronger.

A
second danger into which an esoteric can et on this outer path is
instability. One who has studied world evolution seriously will have
felt that intense interests that he had previously disappear and that
he doesn't have a firm hold on anything earthy. The danger here
is that one's instability is disguised in the form of a high
ideal that one is striving towards or a mission that one has to
fulfill. But if we see through this and recognize it as a disguised
instability we'll make rapid progress on the right path.

In
descents into our interior two dangers threaten us. We can have a
certain sensual pleasure, a comfortable feeling from the divine
through the immersion in us and can thereby fall prey to a fine
egotism, so that we turn away from everything that surrounds us and
that should still interest.

The
second danger is that a man can take what approaches him on immersion
into himself to be spiritual revelations, when they may just be his
own feelings.

Medieval mystics didn't have theosophical teachings yet. We
don't find the latter anywhere in them. Their union with the
divine is like a Neo-Buddhism. They didn't need the outer path
yet.

Mystics
also use the saying In Christo morimur in the form: In
Christ we live.